


Cut to the End

by undersail2013



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Loss of Grace, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2450894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undersail2013/pseuds/undersail2013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is dying.  Falling is the only option left to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cut to the End

_This is the end,_ he thinks. He can barely function. His chest convulses at the slightest tickle of air. He burns with fever. He sleeps, or would but for the pain wracking every tissue in this walking corpse.

Were he still in love with his celestial home, he would want no part of Hannah's Heaven. She fears the tyrants even as she herself becomes one. Killing to retain order, lest chaos lead to slaughter. The angels will never break the cycle, because they understand nothing more sophisticated than this. They wear a thousand eyes, and yet they are blind.

He knows this. He knows better than this. And still he watched as his hand drew back the blade that sent Daniel to oblivion. Daniel, who understood. Daniel, who spoke of freedom and free will in fish analogies. Daniel, who is now no more than a thought the Universe once had, because of Castiel, God's weapon.

_This is the end,_ he thinks, _of Castiel the hammer, the instrument of divine retribution._

He stumbles over the roots of trees that were already old when the angels first stopped speaking to humans, back in the so-called "biblical times." Perhaps there is some of the ancient magic bound in this grove. He would much prefer Gethsemane, but he is grounded and he is dying and he is halfway around the globe in a backwater called America. Bristlecone pines will have to suffice.

_This is the end._ It has become a mantra. He repeats it as he slices his palm with the little silver knife Dean once gave him. He chants it as he paints wards in the blood of his body. He intones it as he cordons off the small sacred space, makes it proof against intruders of any species. _This is the end._

When, at last, he stops, he looks around at the sanctuary in the failing light. Tests the boundaries with what little remains of his powers. It will hold.

With a weary sigh and a childish whimper of pain, he moves to the center of the grove. He kneels with some difficulty and places the knife on the ground near his left foot, handle facing away. The angel blade he situates near his right.

He takes a step backwards before removing his coat and splaying the back of the Burberry over the cooling dolomite silt. The suit jacket comes off next: this he folds into a neat square and lays it down on the coat, where the lapels meet. He adds his dress shirt, his thin cotton undershirt to the pile. The belt looks like a snake, coiled just ahead of the tan trenchcoat. Or perhaps it represents a swirling consciousness, a vortex of confusion rising above the collar, he ponders, as he divests himself of his boots. They go on either side of the blades, with socks stuffed into the toes. A pair of slacks and one of white boxers complete the fabric cairn.

He checks that all is orderly before sinking to the ground over the midsection of the coat, legs bent into a half-lotus.

"This is the end. Goodbye," he whispers. A ringing cacophony of celestial voices batters against his ears as he picks up the silver knife, and with a thought, they all fall silent. Castiel, signing off.

He hefts the little blade, weak and frail, sometimes all that stands between humanity and the monsters. He purses his lips as he steels himself for the first cut. 

He can feel the sickly grace, a slimy writhing ooze settled in his right lung. Hence the cough. Extracting it will be neither quick nor painless. Even at full power, the voluntary removal of one’s grace is unpleasant.

He thinks of Anna. He shakes his head, attempts to dislodge the memories. _Her_ death, at least, is not his fault.

He probes his ribs, feeling for the pocket nearest the contagion, but the bone shields the lungs too effectively. The breath he draws now offers small comfort; perhaps it is his last. It bolsters him enough, though. With the fingers of his right hand, he pulls taut the skin covering his chest. His left hand wavers. He halts the cold blade just as it touches its mark, hoping to control the tremor; it only increases. Shaking his head, gritting his teeth, he plunges it in to the ricasso. 

The airless scream escapes the circle of wards, strikes the clouds above, a shockwave to dissipate thunderheads. A satellite disruption over the western US the only testament to the final act of a falling angel.

He looks down at the knife still sunk behind his ribs. It pierces his lung, and blue-white grace seeps around the blade, but it’s not enough. Somehow, he convinces his fingers to wrap around the handle again. This time, though, pulling at the flesh makes him gasp. His eyes well and flicker. He lets go. Too late to go back, too painful to go forward. He would laugh at his cowardice, were he not weeping, panting shallow sobs. He who had carved a banishment sigil into his own chest. He who had dug a bullet from his own guts _don’t think about that don’t think about Ion don’t think about them they are dead and you are alive keep going…_

With a sudden fire, he rises to his knees, holds the knife in his right hand and tugs, drags the not-nearly-sharp-enough blade downward, slicing a clean gash before collapsing onto his elbows. He is conscious just long enough to watch the first fat globs of grace splotch the neat pile of clothes.

***

Oblivion is … not what he imagined. It’s brighter than he’d expected. More place-like, too. He’s somewhere. 

He’s not dead.

He’s not quite alive, either. 

He’s sprawled on a rocky soil, sharp flecks digging into the skin of his arms and his face. His lips, his nose, his eyes: gritty. It hurts to breathe.

He sucks in a breath when he remembers why. _A mistake,_ he thinks. 

It takes several minutes to recover from the gasp and several more attempting to maneuver his body upright. He settles for flopping onto his back, painfully. The wound is wet, open. He tries to think it closed. But no. He has chosen the slow path. Somehow, he will have to bind the damage, cross the wards, climb down the mountain, back to civilization. Human civilization. 

That is where Cas belongs now.

_This is the beginning._


End file.
